Privacy policy and cookies

Privacy policy and cookies

Privacy Policy for the University of Cambridge alumni and development websites and all their subdomains (‘our/the site’) at alumni.cam.ac.uk, philanthropy.cam.ac.uk and my.homerton.cam.ac.uk.

1. How you can use the password protected area of the site

Registration, logging in and personal information

Access to the password protected area of the site, where you can manage and update your contact information and communication preferences, is provided via a Cantab.net email account from the 'Update your details' page. (If you do not have a Cantab.net account, and do not wish to create one, you can still update your details using our details update form.)

Please be aware that even if you choose not to receive the update emails, we may still send you service emails about use of the site.

Full opt-out

If you wish to opt out of the online system, please visit our FAQ pages. Please be aware that if you fully opt out, you will not receive our monthly alumni e-newsletters. We plan to increasingly send communications via email, so you may miss out on future notifications if you fully opt out, e.g. event notifications. Please note that your details will still be held on the main alumni database in accordance with our Data Protection Statement unless you notify us otherwise.

Personally identifiable information

To help confirm your identity, this site may require you to provide authentication (such as your full name, address details, email address, password, first College, a University-provided ID or number or your date of birth.

2. How we may use your information

Service management

We use the information we collect to provide services and features to you, to measure and improve those services and features, and to provide you with customer support. We may use the information to prevent activities which might breach the conditions of use of our site. We also use a variety of technological systems to detect and address anomalous activity and screen content to prevent abuse such as spam. This may on occasion result in a temporary or permanent suspension or termination of some functions for some users.

Suggesting services

Unless you have told us otherwise, we may use your information to make suggestions that may be of interest to you. For example, if you do not supply a @cantab.net email address, we may suggest that you sign up for an email for life account. Any suggestions will be from the University of Cambridge or those who supply our services and administered by the University's Development and Alumni Relations office.

Site activity

The online system records some of the actions you take when you interact with the alumni site such as updating your details, making a donation, or attending an event etc. When you access the alumni site from a computer, mobile phone, or other device, we may collect information from that device about your browser type, location, and IP address, as well as the pages you visit.

3. How we protect your information and credit card transactions

We use technical and organisational security measures to keep your information secure. This site utilises industry standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) servers to encrypt your information to any online financial transactions, if you choose to use our site for this purpose. Monetary transactions are managed by specialist contractors. Shortly after a purchase or refund is processed, you will receive a confirmation via email. You are advised to print out and save a copy of the order confirmation for verification necessary to request refunds or resolve any disputes.

But bear in mind that there are risks inherent in sharing information. Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your information, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other users with whom you share your information. We cannot guarantee that only authorised persons will view your information. We cannot ensure that information you share will not become publicly available. We are not responsible for third party circumvention of any privacy settings or our security measures. You can reduce these risks by using common sense security practices such as choosing a strong password, using different passwords for different services, and using up to date antivirus software.

4. How we share information

The password protected area of the site is partly about sharing information with others while providing you with settings that you can use to restrict other users from accessing your information. We share your information with third parties in accordance with our Data Protection Statement.

Cantab.net

We work with Aluminati Network Group to provide an alumni email for life service.

5. Cookies

This site uses cookies – small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. These are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. Cookies also allow websites to respond to you as an individual.

This site uses cookies to recognise you and allow you to automatically log in without re-entering your username and password each time you visit. The cookies are encrypted and do not save any Personally Identifiable Information or Personal Information about you. If you do not enable cookies, you can still use the site but you will be required to enter your password each time you visit. If you enable cookies you can block or remove them at any time using the settings in your browser. If you block cookies, this may prevent you from taking full advantage of our website.

The table below explains the first party cookies features that our site may use depending on active services and actions by website visitors.

NAME

PURPOSE

DURATION

ssess*

Session ID, required by the website to track your session.

Until end of session

adaptive_image

Stores the pixel width of your display to allow the website to serve optimised images depending on your device.

Until end of session

has_js

Records whether or not your browser has JavaScript enabled.

Until end of session

Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org

Google Analytics

This site runs Google Analytics, which uses four cookies for tracking visitors to the site.

These cookies store information about what time the current visit occurred, whether the visitor has been to the site before, and what site referred the visitor to the web page.

No data specific to any identifiable user is retained, and we do not share our data with any other Google services.

With the values gained from these cookies Google Analytics can interpret journeys through our website content, give us information about how people use our site and so allow us to improve it.

Due to shortcomings in Google Analytics the cookies for www.cam.ac.uk are returned to any web site in .cam.ac.uk. We believe that the Google Analytics code on these other sites will ignore these extra cookies.

As a user you may opt out of the process Google Analytics uses to collect traffic log data (should your web browser be compatible). Google provides a browser add-on that enables a user to opt out of receiving Google Analytics cookies - http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

COOKIE

RETURNED TO

FUNCTION

DURATION

__utma

alumni.cam.ac.uk

Google Analytics

Persistent for 2 years

__utmb

alumni.cam.ac.uk

Google Analytics

Persistent for 30 minutes

__utmc

alumni.cam.ac.uk

Google Analytics

Current browsing session

__utmz

alumni.cam.ac.uk

Google Analytics

Persistent for 6 months

Crazy Egg

This site also uses the Crazy Egg service to record the location of individual clicks on the website. This information is used to identify the most heavily clicked areas of the website, but also where users expect to be able to click. Using this information we have already been able to make a number of usability improvements to our site, and we will continue to do so in the future. Click data is recorded anonymously. Crazy Egg also provides us with other insightful information which we use in the same way. In order to record this information we set one cookie on your computer to identify whether you are a returning visitor.

COOKIE

RETURNED TO

VALUE

DURATION

is_returning

cam.ac.uk

1 or 0

Persistent for 5 years

If you would like to opt-out of Crazy Egg tracking, please see their easy-to-follow opt-out instructions.

Third party cookies and embedded services

Google Maps

Navigating to a page that contains an embedded Google Map will set cookies on your computer from ‘google.co.uk’:

NAME

PURPOSE

EXPIRES

khcookie

Stores a unique identifier

End of session

NID

Stores a unique identifier

After approximately 6 months

PREF

Stores a unique identifier

End of session

testcookie

A test cookie that stores the value '1' (multiple instances may appear)

Issuu

We use the Issuu document reader to provide an interactive experience for reading some documents on our website. When you visit a page containing one of these readers the following cookies will be set on your computer:

YouTube

We will occasionally embed YouTube videos in the website to provide a more engaging user experience. Where possible we will use a 'privacy enhanced' embed which will not set any cookies until the media is played. When the media is played, or this embed could not be implemented, the following cookies could be set on your computer:

SET BY

NAME

PURPOSE

EXPIRES

youtube.com

PREF

Stores information about your visit and your Flash player version

After approximately 2 years

youtube.com

VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE

Stores unique identifier related to information about your visit

After approximately 8 months

youtube.com

YSC

Stores unique identifier related to information about your visit

End of session

doubleclick.net

test_cookie

Tests whether it is possible to set a cookie on your browser; related to advertising